Cross-country skiing at the 2010 Winter Olympics – Women's 10 kilometre freestyle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Women's 10 kilometre freestyle at the XXI Olympic Winter Games | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Venue | Whistler Olympic Park | ||||||||||||
Dates | 15 February | ||||||||||||
Competitors | 78 from 36 nations | ||||||||||||
Winning time | 24:58.4 | ||||||||||||
Medalists | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
The women's 10 kilometre freestyle cross-country skiing competition at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada was held on February 15 at Whistler Olympic Park in Whistler, British Columbia at 10:00 PST.[1]
Each skier starts at 30-second intervals, skiing the entire 10 kilometre course. Estonia's Kristina Šmigun-Vähi was the defending Olympic champion in this event though it was held in the classical style.[2] Aino-Kaisa Saarinen on Finland was the defending world champion though that event was also held in the classical style.[3] The final World Cup event in women's 10 km freestyle prior to the 2010 Games took place on February 5 at Canmore, Alberta and was won by Sweden's Charlotte Kalla.[4]
Šmigun-Vähi won silver in this event, Saarinen would finish 15th, and Kalla would win gold.[5] Kalla is the Sweden's first female individual gold medalist in cross-country skiing since Toini Gustafsson's 5 km win at Grenoble in 1968.